Marvel’s Iron Fist Season 1 was dreadfully dull, and Season 2 is the swift kick in the seat that Netflix’s vigilantiverse needed. That’s my lean and mean assessment of Iron Fist Season 2, a lean and mean season that more than warrants that hot take. I kid you not: Iron Fist Season 2 features quite possibly the biggest, boldest step up in quality I’ve ever seen in a Netflix show, and shockingly, it might be the best Marvel series of 2018.

The killer-to-filler ratio is no longer outta whack, and that makes Iron Fist Season 2 the martial arts crime drama longtime fans of the character wanted from the jump. This high praise, which I definitely did not expect to be giving to a series that just last year prioritized boardroom meetings over fight scenes, all boils down to those two words I’m gonna keep returning to: lean and mean.

Unlike every other season of a Netflix/Marvel show, save the Defenders mini-series, Iron Fist Season 2 has chopped off three episodes for a 10-episode season. Not only that, but the episodes themselves are tightly-edited 50-minute (or less!) chunks. This shift away from 13 hour+ episodes, is Iron Fist’s greatest strength. This runtime bloat made Jessica Jones and Luke Cage’s second seasons tough to get through, as plots stalled for multiple episodes that sometimes expanded up to almost 70 minutes long. Iron Fist doesn’t have that problem. In the six episodes made available to the press in advance, the show’s central plot twists and turns more times than Jones or Cage’s sophomore seasons combined. Iron Fist, named after a character that doesn’t inspire the same kind of devotion as Jones or Cage, has taken a page from Danny Rand’s new fighting style and decided to just get in and get out.

Netflix

Since I brought up fights, well, that’s what you wanna know about, right? You figure a martial arts show should have great fights, but that was notoriously not the case with Season 1’s rushed dust-ups. This is why Season 2 is a winner: this fight show figured out how to do fights.

Black Panther fight coordinator Clayton Barber was brought on to amp up the action and ended up saving the whole season. These are, without a doubt, the cleanest and fiercest fights seen in a Marvel Netflix show, made even more eye-bugging by the fact that you can see Finn Jones and Jessica Henwick doing all of this fancy foot-and-fist-work. And these fights aren’t dumbed down, either; every fight is a unique sequence, taking the heroes into city streets, a cluttered kitchen, a ceremonial palace, a tattoo parlor or an upscale apartment. Each brawl is totally customized for its surroundings, as ordinary objects like a big ol’ pot become a combination shield and cudgel. The direction and editing will only make your jaw drop further, as these conflicts glide along in wide shots with minimal editing.

Basically, Iron Fist heard all the complaints about Season 1 and was like, “I’ll show you!” And then it did.

Linda Kallerus/Netflix

So, what about meaner? Let’s talk about Alice Eve. The Netflix shows have unleashed some of the best Marvel villains ever put on screen. Wilson Fisk, Kilgrave, Cottonmouth and Black Mariah–these are all roles that every actor has sunk their teeth into, drawing blood. As Mary Walker, known in the comics as Typhoid Mary, Alice Eve brings something completely new–and completely terrifying–to this already intense corner of the Marvel Universe. Her villain has two halves, the sweet “Mary” persona and the sour “Walker” one. Eve, however, doesn’t reserve her intensity for just one or the other; she plays bubbly with a sinister tinge and dusts her derangement with pathos. Eve slips into not one but two distinct roles, each one uniquely unsettling, and creates a character that you, and definitely the characters in scenes with her, can’t predict.

Photo: Netflix

But every vicious addition to a cast needs a rightous counter to balance things out, and that’s where Simone Missick’s Misty Knight comes in. Fresh off Season 2 of Luke Cage, where she got a robotic arm with a literal metal fist as opposed to Danny’s metaphorical one, Detective Knight travels from Harlem down to Chinatown to investigate a conflict simmering between the triads. With Rosario Dawson’s Claire Temple MIA for the foreseeable future, Misty Knight has effortlessly slid into the role of “character that gives zero Fs about calling heroes out on their BS.” And just like Misty, Missick brings her A-game to every single Marvel show, Iron Fist being no exception.

Photo: Netflix

Removed from her partnership with Luke Cage and the personal drama of Harlem, we get to see an unfiltered side of Misty as she bonds with Henwick’s Colleen Wing and doesn’t even flinch when coming face-to-face with Walker. There’s a solid stretch of episodes that play out like the Daughters of the Dragon series that we need yesterday.

I’m not gonna front like Iron Fist Season 2 is perfect. Few TV seasons can be Mad Men Season 5 or Buffy Season 3, after all. Even on the grand scheme of Marvel/Netflix shows, this one falls squarely in the middle of the pack because there are still scars from Season 1 on this mostly healed show. Finn Jones is much more comfortable in the role, having found his footing in Defenders and his Luke Cage episode. But he’s still playing a privileged doof that’s as intimidating as a pound puppy. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and the show knows that’s his whole deal. Still, he’s way less charismatic than Colleen and Misty–but also, everyone is.

The show is also still overly invested in the Meachum family drama, specifically where Danny isn’t concerned. Joy Meachum (Jessica Stroup) and Ward Meachum (Tom Pelphrey) work well when in scenes with their pseudo brother Danny, and Joy’s villainous partnership with the super intense Davos (Sacha Dhawan) provides a lot of great material for her, but the show drags when Ward gets 100 yards away from his sister or Danny–and the show still loves following Ward wherever he wants to go.

But the fact that the show drags when Danny’s not around is a considerable step up from Season 1. In fact, the only reason I can’t bring myself to care about Meachum meanderings is because Season 2 is packed with so much that is genuinely exciting. The fight scenes and the addition of Alice Eve and Simone Missick make this the most consistently entertaining Marvel show of the year. I’m just as surprised as you.